maternity pads are generally nice and thick and soft - which, if you have a VB - you really want! i had five packs of mat pads and used only three of them - but the hospy supplied pads for the first day and a half as i had a c/s and they were monitoring my bleeding due to bleeding too much during recovery.

from what a couple of friends have said, the thick soft ones are much more comfy on a sore body!

i'd have at least a few packets of mat pads, and then some of your regular overnight ones on hand - if you usually have heavy AF it's not like they're going to go to waste!